Iduna

by Maya Michaels

  Chapter 24

  Iduna spent the next week dashing from the kitchens to the library in the brief windows of time between meal preparations and cleaning up after meals. The books soothed her, but more important she had hoped to find an answer. There should be a book to explain what Vilir was doing, or, at the very least, she might read something to prompt a useful thought. The necklace sat in her pocket, mocking her attempts to unravel its mysteries.

  Sensei Angko had passed it to her as he had held her hands in his. If anyone had been watching, they would never know what had passed between them. It was made of a material she hadn’t encountered before. She’d experimented with it in the privacy of her room, trying to pull at the elements to understand where it came from and what it meant. Whatever she tried, the necklace just sat there. It had a silvery glint, and the pendant was an elaborate weave of web-thin strands of fine metal. She couldn’t make out any image, pattern, or message in the design. It must have meaning, but she couldn’t figure it out. Why had Sensei given it to her? What should she do?

  She chopped carrots for the afternoon curry while considering options.

  “What did those carrots do to you?” Tinh asked, startling her and drawing her out of her head. He grabbed a piece of carrot and popped it in his mouth. “That is some vicious slicing and dicing.”

  “The carrots did nothing. I'm puzzled at the actions of the council.”

  “What did they do now?” Tinh asked.

  “It's what they're not doing. They don't believe me and are ignoring my news that the Ull are going to attack us.”

  “Well, congratulations, you were right. I come with news. I'm being sent to serve as second commander in an Elementalist attack on the invading horde. I'll be leading the third squad out of four. We will take care of them. You don't need to worry or slaughter carrots anymore,” he jested.

  “They're invading? How far away are they? How are you going to overcome their unknown magic?” Her questions came rapidly as she processed the news.

  “No congratulations?”

  “Of course, of course. I know you were hoping to lead a squad someday, and you will be a great leader.” She hesitated. “But, Tinh, do you know what you're up against?”

  “A marauding primitive horde? Yes, I've heard the same tales you did growing up—well, perhaps fewer since my parents weren't Ull—but I know about their great size and skill with axes. It does sound like a lot of them, but we'll have four squads. That's forty of our best Elementalists. Their axes will be no good against the avalanche, wave, or fireball we will send at them.”

  “You don't get it. Didn't they tell you? The Ull are using a dark magic.”

  Tinh pushed back from the table of carrots. “Don't be silly, Iduna. What happened to you? The Ull don't use magic. You know their culture idolizes self-sufficiency, and, to them, using magic is cheating. Why would you say such a thing?”

  “It's true, Tinh. The Ull are using magic. Their leader, Vilir, made people feel things, and he seemed stronger because of it. When I was at their camp, I saw it happen.” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him it had happened to her. She’d already lost enough respect here.

  “Oh, Iduna, for all your book knowledge, you don't know much, do you? If only you had not spent so much time with books, maybe you would know more of the world and not mistake some hangover with dark magic.”

  There it was. The prejudice the Elementalists had toward Spellcrafters showing up in someone she thought of as a friend. She must have bruised his pride. She must get him to understand.

  “Tinh, please, you must believe me. You don't know what you're up against. I’m worried about you.”

  He was standing up straighter than a sun dial now, and he looked down his nose at her. “Iduna, I wasn't going to say anything, but you need to know the full cost of what you did. It was you who brought the Ull here with your snooping. The council told you that they decided not to risk it, but of course you went. I am an elite Elementalist. Elementalists have been defenders of Lawan for centuries. We have saved Lawan countless times. We will do so again.” With that, he turned curtly and left the room.

  She was beyond words. Her worst fear was coming true. The Ull were invading Lawan. Would she end up fighting Freya and Unger in the street? How had Vilir's magic evolved? The Ull were probably mad with temper and despair by now. And her oldest friend blamed her.

  The sense of loss grew in her — she felt that same spot created by Vilir's song throb with emptiness. She put her hand to her chest and braced herself against the table. She closed her eyes and felt hot tears pour down her cheeks through her tightly clenched eyelids. She couldn't succumb. Yet the tears just kept flowing. She needed to find some answers. Shaking her head, she stared up at the ceiling and gasped for air, drawing gulp after gulp of the warm, humid kitchen air into her lungs.

  She sensed a presence. Surat stood in the doorway, for who-knew-how-long, with the first look of sympathy she’d seen the cook give in all the years the two had known each other.

  “You heard that,” Iduna said, as more an observation than question.

  “I'm not deaf,” Surat replied.

  “Of course not.” Iduna braced herself. The wounds Tinh had left were raw, and she didn't want to be hurt by another so soon. “The Ull are coming, and we won't be able to stop them.”

  “Well, child, then you had better get on it.”

  “I've been racking my brain, and I don't know what kind of magic Vilir is using or how to combat it.”

  “You have always been good at finding things.” Surat wandered into the room, making her way around the large table that served as a cutting board. She picked up one of the slices of chopped carrot and tossed it in her mouth. “You mentioned that he was manipulating emotions?”

  “He sang, and it seemed to call out bitterness and sorrow in everyone, even creating some where there had been none.”

  “There's enough sorrow in this world without creating more. Though if you’re trying to say you didn’t have sorrow before this, I’d take another look. If you want to learn about mastering emotion, and not the suppression of feelings taught here, then you'd better go see the people on the island of Okeenos. Rumor has it that they use emotion to trick the sea. I've heard some crazy tales, but, if you don't find any answers soon in those books of yours, then go.” She tilted her chin down and looked hard at Iduna.

  “But you may need me here. They’re coming,” Iduna said.

  “Go find the answer. That’s your talent. Don’t waste it.” Surat picked up another thick slice of carrot. “You’re talent definitely isn’t in the kitchen.”

  Iduna smiled briefly. If the Ull had thought Iduna’s cooking was good, they would faint after eating Surat’s.

  “Get out of here, and find the answer.” With that, Surat wiped her hands on her apron and left the chopping room to go check on the stoves.

  Iduna raced to the library. A part of her felt like a child again with Surat sending her to root out ginger or turmeric, and now, like then, Iduna felt bolstered by the confidence Surat had in her ability to do what was needed.

  She’d never heard of Okeenos. It took some digging, but, in an old atlas buried in the back of the stacks, she found it. Okeenos was a small island chain off the coast of Lawan. She needed to know more. If she left Cha now, then she wouldn't be able to help fight off the Ull if they got to the city. She would be abandoning more people she cared about. She felt like a coward for leaving, but, if she stayed to fight, then she would certainly fail. Iduna remembered the darkness, how hard she'd tried to just walk back to the camp and yet had failed.

  Running to her quarters, she stuffed her bags and then headed to the stables.

  Chapter 25

  Move and wait. Move and wait. Freya had found that she couldn't loiter in the alley leading to the door for too long without raising suspicion. There was just enough regular traffic to have someone notice she was always here. She'd cursed needing to leave and wandered between the m
arket and the door Iduna had disappeared into.

  Freya leaned against the wall with the hood of her azure Lawanian cape shading her face in the bright afternoon sun. She tried to stay here as much as she could each day without being noticed. She eyed the small red door Iduna had disappeared into days ago. Waiting for that door to open was like waiting for a glacier to melt. A man was sweeping his porch. Freya wished he would go away. Just as she was thinking that the man was about to greet her, Freya saw Iduna slip out the door. Finally.

  Iduna had a saddlebag with her. Freya thanked the gods and said out loud, “Unger, we have a chance.” She'd started speaking to her husband. Whether to feel closer or as a reminder why she was here in this foreign land, she didn't know and didn't care. She knew where Iduna was heading, since Freya had been forced to put her own horse in the capital stables when she'd entered the city. She kept Iduna in sight. As she headed to the stables, Freya backed off. Then she heard swiftly moving feet, and the sky opened up in an afternoon downpour. She pulled her hood more fully over her head and plowed through the pouring rain.

  She thought Iduna had looked focused and wondered spitefully who Iduna was plotting to betray next.

  She had to wait until Iduna got her horse before Freya dared enter the stable to retrieve her own. Once Iduna left, she asked for her horse and one of the stable-hands went to prepare her horse. She didn’t have time. But she also didn’t have much money to offer a tip to hurry them along. Freya had been living on the streets, looking for Iduna, and hadn’t showered in days. She walked over to the unoccupied stable-hand and stood uncomfortably close. He promptly left her side to help the other get her mount ready. They were so predictable.

  As Freya rode out of the stable, she paused at the mixed set of muddled hoof prints. There was no clear sign which way Iduna had gone. With no choice but to play the odds, she followed the main road out of Cha. At the first fork, it looked like most people headed farther inland. A shallow set of tracks went toward the sea. Thinking of Iduna's slight figure compared to a man in armor, she chose the seaward direction.

  She galloped hard, hoping to confirm that she'd headed in the right direction, and then she'd back off. The rain stopped, and the sun came out. Steam rose from her robe as she rode on.

  She didn't catch up with Iduna until they neared the first town. There she saw Iduna trotting slowly down the fishing town’s main road. Pulling up on the reins, Freya hung back. She would catch Iduna under dark of night.

  Freya would make Iduna pay.

  Chapter 26

  Myik, Republic of Lawan

  Iduna was stuck. She’d gone to the little fishing town of Myik that stood on the Lawanian coast just a day’s sail from where the Okeenos islands supposedly were. She thought there would be daily or at least weekly transport from this town. Strangely enough, no one seemed to know any way to get to the islands. She'd asked at the wharf and in a number of shops and restaurants. People were unusually abrupt in their responses. She couldn't even get them talking about the people of Okeenos so that Iduna could feel better about her decision to chase down this lead instead of staying to fight.

  With no idea what to do next and still full of guilt and frenetic energy, Iduna sat down at the open-air bar near the wharf. The deeper side of the harbor was to the north with the shore ringed by docks. A narrow beach ran along the south side. She eyed the ships bobbing in the mooring field of the small harbor like apples in a barrel. The sounds of boats creaking with the wind and swell would have been soothing on another day.

  There was a portly man, with thin hair spread over his head and flushed cheeks, sitting at a table with a large empty glass and a well-eaten crustacean shell in front of him. He looked replete with his afternoon meal and a bit on the lethargic side. A hat sitting on the corner of the table looked official. Iduna had finally found the harbor master.

  She ordered two glasses of rice wine and walked over to his table. “Mind if I join you? I have an extra drink that I need some help with.”

  The harbor master looked at her and the tall glass. “Oh, yes, of course. Always room for more … more company.” She placed one drink within reach of his left hand and the other in front of her. Sitting down, she waited a while before talking, letting him enjoy a long swig in appreciative silence.

  “It's a nice village you have here,” she said.

  “Yes, Myik does well. Long summers, light winters, good fishing, good wine.”

  “I hear that the fishing life is hard.”

  “Oh, it is. We lost a ship just two weeks ago to a spring squall. It's risky work,” he said.

  “Do you do much trading as well?” she asked.

  When a man as relaxed as this one started to get tense, it was as obvious as a typhoon. Suddenly his lethargy had a cold edge of awareness to it.

  “We trade with only the right people,” he said.

  All right, so Iduna may have spent most of her time with her nose in a book, but she had spent years when she was younger working to get the best quality food, haggling in the local market. Since she was working on behalf of the Institute which needed to be above reproach, all of her dealings were with reputable sellers. She had to make sure she was honest, or Surat would have her skin. She’d learned to spot shady dealings quickly to avoid any hassle.

  There was something behind this man’s defensiveness.

  “Of course. A fair village like yours would never trade with people like the scum of Okeenos,” she said.

  He chortled self-righteously. “Never, never. There are great Lawanian tradesmen up and down the coast that deserve our business. Some might like the Okeeno bird eggs and pearls”—he coughed a bit—“but we are honest people here and follow the mandates of Lawan.”

  And this is what she gets for not caring about politics. She had no idea what mandates he was referring to. He would not be helping her get to Okeenos.

  “Those in Okeenos do have legendary sailing skills,” she prodded, hoping to at least get Surat's lead confirmed. But the harbor master took refuge in the wine, taking long gulps, his Adam's apple bobbing. He wiped his mouth, then either did, in fact, fall asleep or managed to give an incredibly convincing act of a man sleeping off his afternoon's gluttony.

  Restraining the urge to kick over the man’s chair, Iduna turned her gaze to the calm harbor. This would cost her time, but clearly there was some trade going on.

  She just needed to find it.

  Chapter 27

  Tinh stood in front of his squad of crimson-robed Elementalists and eyed the three other groups to his right. Everyone looked ready. They were in the middle of a wide plain of tall golden grass and had been watching the steady progression of Ull down the craggy mountain pass. There was already a massive Ull camp at the base of the mountain.

  And still more Ull came.

  Tinh waited. They wouldn’t instigate the attack. The Ull would come to them, and then the Elementalists would raise the water from the river. A few Ull would be lost, but the rest would see the impossibility of their attempts and turn back.

  The practical side of Tinh made him wish they could show the Ull the futility of their attack now so all those pouring down the mountain trails could just turn back. They were wasting their time. It was so inefficient.

  He sighed and remembered the saying Effort is life. The Ull were just going to have to learn their lesson the hard way.

  Chapter 28

  It was a wild and windy moonless night. Iduna lay at the edge of a cliff overlooking the flat sprawl of the uninhabited stretch of beach just to the north of the fishing town. Everything pointed to Myik trading with the Okeeno, and she just needed to catch them. This beach had the best place to land, and nighttime would be when the illegal trading would occur. It could happen tonight, tomorrow, or in a month.

  The moon was just a sliver this evening, and she felt the odds were on her side.

  Waves pounded the pebbled beach, and the steady onshore breeze had her eyes straining. She licked her chapped lip
s and tasted the salt of the sea. The air was thick with it — the smell of salt and seaweed surrounded her. She spent most of her time watching the horizon, with her gaze flicking sporadically to shore.

  The ocean churned in a steady progression to the beach, with multiple lines of wave breaks.

  That was how she first saw them.

  Her brain noticed a change in the pattern of the waves far out. It drew her attention just long enough. She pushed her sight and mind to figure out what she'd seen. In a series of wave breaks closer to her, she picked out what looked like several dark vertical leaves plowing over the waves. She calculated the trajectory and figured where the odd objects were headed. She didn't know what they were, but she couldn't hesitate if she hoped to catch them on the beach.

  She used a quick spell on the rocks, arranging a series of handholds to scramble down the cliff face quickly and tumbled the last few feet to the bottom. Running along the beach, she hugged the steep wall. This should be the spot. She waited.

  …

  Freya watched Iduna's rapid descent with fury. How did she do that? What else had Iduna hidden from Freya?

  She studied Iduna on the beach and considered if this was finally the time to get her prey. No one was around, and darkness would shield Freya. She could catch Iduna by surprise. She’d slide down and leap on Iduna from above.

  The image of slitting Iduna's throat came to her unbidden.

  Freya could taste blood in her mouth. Her hand flew to her lips, aghast at the sensation.

  …

  One by one the strange objects sped toward the shore. Iduna could hardly believe what she was seeing.

  They looked like vertical leaves, but that made no sense. Each dark leaf, when seen closer, was actually one person holding on to what looked like a single large wing. She was used to seeing wings working in pairs to make a bird fly by being parallel to the Earth and flapping up and down. These people had just one large wing, longer than they were tall, and held it vertically. The wings didn't flap or move, but the pair moved as if they were flying over the water nonetheless.